I have been asked about a few injuries that have occurred in the last few days in FL. It sounds like there were injuries in separate incidents at the FCPA swoop meet at Zhiils this weekend and in training for it. I was told that one jumper has broken ribs during landing and another jumper might have spinal damage after A lines broke during their swoop turn.

I have very little details on these incidents but it sounds like both of the jumpers were current and experienced.

Albert Berchtold gave a nice reminder speech to the competitors about maintaining their gear. As he pointed out, a new line set is a lot cheaper than a ride to the hospital and surgery. Sounds like this injury (the line break incident) could have been prevented with proper gear maintenance.

I'm not sure of the exact name of the lines. So many different ones. But from looking they were the real thin ones but as to which exactly I dont know. There was signs on wear at the point the slinks loop. As for any other details like number of jumps on the set I just do not know. All I know is the line snapped at the worst possible time while trying to swoop the pond. Kelsey is beat up right now but I must say he was working his ass off trying to land it and avoid obstacles for the 10 seconds after the line broke.

I think the thing that we can by this is to check your gear often and when you see some wear and tear to go so your local friendly rigger and have him fix it. That $200 line set is a lot cheaper than the stay at your hospital.

Assuming this is a lineset with a fair amount of use on it (and this wasn't a construction issue on a fairly new lineset) I think it would be instructive to find out how many jumps were on the lineset, photograph both the the broken and remaining lines, and then destructively pull test the rest of the lineset.

I would be interested to see a map of the remaining ultimate strength of the lineset... e.g.:

A/B-lines (left to right): x lbs, y lbs, ... , z lbs, ? (broken)

C/D-lines (left to right) etc...

It might change people's minds about how many jumps they want to do on competition linesets.

Albert Berchtold gave a nice reminder speech to the competitors about maintaining their gear. As he pointed out, a new line set is a lot cheaper than a ride to the hospital and surgery. Sounds like this injury (the line break incident) could have been prevented with proper gear maintenance.

Wear on lines, especially so-called waxed lines, is not always obvious. I know a guy whose Vectran steering line failed in the bottom of a swoop. Previous 4 jumps on the canopy were by another experienced instructor/swooper and it was packed by a highly experienced packer, so 3 guys missed it. A little less than 300 jumps on the canopy and line set. That guy has titanium in his legs as a result.

Like stated above Jeanie hit the water hard and is home now and Kelsey had a ab line break and is awaiting surgery for his L2.

The below is in no relation to either of the jumpers or their gear as I didn't personally get to inspect their gear and i dont know how it was maintained or jumped:

high performance wings with small lines(300 lb typically even cascading to 200 lb on the bs and ds using vectran, technora, hma, all types) need to be replaced sooner than later. Your looking realistically at 75 to 150 jumps, some guys are getting more but when do you really cross the threshold? That remains to be at a set number, yes you can get more but is it worth it? The fact is we're inducing more stress on our lines on turns now then the openings. Additionally these lines are not meant to be taken to terminal which I've seen plet ly of people do regularly.

The cost of maintaining a competition wing is much more costly and it doesn't fit the needs of the modern day videographer and fun jumper yet we still continue to use these wings to terminal just because.

Its Never a bad idea to have another main with a stronger lb lineset for your regular jumps and keeping track of jumps on your lineset is crucial. It's never easy spending 300 bucks on lines every month or two but it needs to be done on these wings. This is where we must ask ourselves are we jumping whats proper for our main need in the sport. This is also part of the reason these lines aren't available for regular purchase from pd for your regular velo. They are meant for subterminal openings and taking the limit that much higher which sometimes do lead us to a more dangerous place.

We all accept these risks jumping and competitive canopy piloting only pushes us that much farther forward into the risk zone when we don't have proper maintenance of our gear and we are all guilty of putting things off for "one more day".

What matters is how you take the info from this and how you continue to maintain your gear

We wish a speedy recover to both jumpers from the meet and hope for a full recovery

Additionally if your using a rds you need to regularly inspect you rings for nicks wear and burs that increase line wear. The days of jumping a lineset until it breaks on opening are no longer realistic with the modern designs and decreased stress on openings associated the modern canopy

high performance wings with small lines(300 lb typically even cascading to 200 lb on the bs and ds using vectran, technora, hma, all types) need to be replaced sooner than later. Your looking realistically at 75 to 150 jumps, some guys are getting more but when do you really cross the threshold?

This is how bad information gets started around here.

There several different types of line out there. Some may only go about 150 jumps and others will go much longer. It just depends.

This is where education is needed, not someone simply throwing out some best self guess jump numbers and calling it factual. Also there is a difference between OD line wear and ID loop wear.

If you will notice the next time you are using front risers, watch the movement of the lines at the slink. Then remember that one of the first rules of engineering is "if it moves. it will wear out"

Now add in the fact that the slink has a zigzag (bartack) on it which can be really abrasive to the loaded line, and then you have the real answer.

Maybe line inspection probably should become mandatory at all of the meets in the future?

Mel I'm referring to small 300 lb line obviously stronger lines and different line types will get different life and that is stated If you read my whole post. And I have a unbiased opinion about it because I don't manufacture lines and linesets. There's no magical number of jumps simple as that but in this cases it sound like a replacement was needed a while ago by inspection after the fact and that's second hand.

In no way did I say change your lines by 150 jumps its your interpretation and its something that all jumpers not just the high performance guys need to continue to look at all the time. Simple as that.

When guys on the PDFT are breaking over several lines on a opening it shows its something we all need to be aware of because if it can happen to someone with a lot of cost covered gear its more likely to happen to the everyday jumper pinching pennies